


The Best I Could (From Where I Came From)

by FreshBrains



Series: Melissa McCall [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Family Feels, Gen, POV Melissa McCall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:44:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Be proud, Melissa</i>, she told herself in the mirror every morning as she pinned her curls back and took a deep breath, readying herself for another hectic day.  <i>You deserve to be proud</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best I Could (From Where I Came From)

**Author's Note:**

> This is in the same 'verse as [So I Could Be Happy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/863239) and would take place before Isaac's adoption, but it can also be read as a standalone. Inspired by guest user Shay's [comment](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/3657516), requesting a little bit more of Melissa McCall. If they had an AO3 account, I would gift it to them! Thanks, Shay!
> 
> Title from "Humble and Proud" by Imelda May

Melissa McCall was a tough cookie—it was hard to be a working single mother and _not_ be tough as nails, a little hardened to the world. She was often tired, sometimes a little cranky with the demands from every direction of her life, but first and foremost, she reminded herself to be _proud_. She was proud to be a hardworking nurse and a mother who was home sometimes to talk to her son and cook him dinner and go to his lacrosse games. She was thankful that she ended up being a woman who could keep a home and support her small family and feel loved, appreciated, and generally content. 

She knew a lot of people who had it much worse—women who came in with broken noses and fractured ribs who insisted they fell down the stairs (again), men whose livers were failing them in their early fifties because they drank too much, elderly couples who had to watch each other lose their fond memories.

A police sheriff who buried himself in horrifying cases so he could stop thinking about how much he missed his wife.

_Be proud, Melissa_ , she told herself in the mirror every morning as she pinned her curls back and took a deep breath, readying herself for another hectic day. _You deserve to be proud_. Her mother always told her that when she was a little girl, crying because the boys wouldn’t let her play baseball with them, even though she was the best hitter in the neighborhood, or when her homecoming date stood her up when she was already wearing her expensive new dress.

“Be proud of who you are, _mija_ ,” her mother would say, cupping her face in soft hands, her smile painfully beautiful. “I know how special you are. You need to know it, too.”

Melissa knew who she was—mother, nurse, friend, confidant, daughter (even though her wonderful mother passed when Scott was just a little boy). She was a good person.

And what happens when a good person is faced with a shitty, no-good situation?

They cope. 

_Be proud, Melissa._

The biggest problem was that Scott was a good kid, he always had been. Melissa had no issue with the occasional slammed door, the eye rolling, the skipped day of school. She’d done far worse when she was a teenager, and even when she felt like smacking Scott with a rolled-up newspaper (a concept that became much more inappropriate and a hell of a lot more funny after the whole werewolf thing), she was patient with him. She loved him. He was her boy, her baby, her _only_ baby, and he was all she had after her parents passed and her brothers moved all across the country and her no-good ex-husband fucked off to wherever-the-fuck. She couldn’t not love him with every inch of herself, with every emotion she had.

But for the first week or so, she was _afraid_ of him.

She might’ve been tough, but she never watched monster movies when she was a little girl—she’d hide behind pillows when her brothers would find Frankenstein or American Werewolf in London on TV. She already had enough imaginary monsters under her bed; she didn’t need any more fuel for her nightmares. But then she was suddenly in her forties and her _son_ was the monster under her bed, and she couldn’t look at him the same way.

“I won’t ever hurt you,” Scott said softly on day, coming out to sit with her on the front porch. “It used to be bad. I was confused. Just as confused as you are now. But Derek helped me, and I won’t hurt anyone ever again, I promise.”

Melissa’s heart ached at Scott’s soft, sad words. She never thought he’d hurt her—she worried about everything else but that, actually. She worried he’d hurt his friends, or hurt Allison. She worried he’d hurt _himself_. “I know, kiddo. I’m just getting used to it still. Don’t worry about me.”

“Do you have any questions? You know, about the werewolf thing?” Scott asked, as if she didn’t know what they were talking about.

She gave him a half-smile and thought about everything that had been keeping her awake at night— _what if the alpha pack reforms, what if Isaac gets hurt, what if Derek comes back, what happens if someone finds out and they take you away from me?_ But she was a mother, and she could not worry her child. So she asked, “Why is there a dog dish with your name on it in your closet?”

Scott was stunned for a second, jaw slack in confusion, before he burst out laughing. Melissa couldn't help but laugh along with him until they both had tears coming out the corners of their eyes.

She was still a little curious, though.

*

Once she stopped being afraid, once she stopped seeing her son as a bomb waiting to go off or a monster ready to attack, the awkward portion of the Great Werewolf Debacle began to take its toll.

“Scott?” She asked cautiously one afternoon, a half-folded towel in her hands as she peered out of the kitchen doorway and into the living room. “Honey, what are you doing?”

Scott was in full human form, no fangs or sideburns anywhere in sight, but he was crouched next to the sofa, rubbing his neck and shoulders all over the worn plaid material. He had the strangest look on his face, dazed and slack, like he had an itch he couldn’t scratch. His head whipped around at the sound of Melissa’s voice, and he gave her a guilty look. “Oh, Mom…um…”

Melissa pursed her lips, telling herself not to laugh at her kid. “Need some help?”

Scott shook his head, cheeks red. “No, not really…was someone over here? Like, today?”

Melissa knit her eyebrows in confusion. “No, it’s just been me, you, and Isaac. Why, do you smell something? Do you think someone was in the house?”

Scott nodded, turning around and falling on his butt like a little boy, staring at the sofa with a pout. “It’s all wrong. It smells weird. It doesn’t smell like us.”

Melissa entered the living room and dropped the towel on the end table. “I slept on the couch last night after I got home from work. I don’t even know why I try to stay up for Leno anymore.” She touched the material of the couch, and Scott’s shoulders slumped a little, like he was relaxing. “Tell me what it smells like.”

Scott wrinkled his nose. “Like cheap perfume. Lilacs, lavender…it makes my nose itch.”

Melissa smiled and turned her arm over, rubbing her wrist against the couch, scenting it with the area where her vanilla perfume was warmest. “I washed my scrubs at the hospital last night after there was a spill. I used the coin-dispenser detergent. That’s all.”

Scott nodded and exhaled, like all his problems were solved. “Oh, okay. I was worried. I just get freaked out sometimes, you know? I know what everyone smells like…you, Isaac, Stiles, Allison, the sheriff…I can smell everyone who comes into the house. It puts me on edge sometimes.”

Melissa slid to the floor to sit next to Scott. “If it makes you feel any better, the fact that you know what every houseguest smells like is pretty impressive. You’re getting stronger.”

Scott looked at her with surprise. “How do you know?”

Melissa shrugged. “I talked to Derek sometimes before he left. He gave me some books, some websites to help me understand. He’s a good man when he’s not being a cranky bastard.”

Scott laughed. “Thanks, Mom. You try so hard. I wish you didn’t have to.”

Melissa inhaled sharply and told herself not to cry. “I do what I can to understand you. You’re my kid, you deserve that.” She got up slowly, her back aching. “And you know, I’ve been thinking. Those books Derek lent me are pretty interesting. I’d like to know more.” She reached out her hand to help Scott up. “I’m thinking of taking a class or two at the community college on English and mythology.”

Scott’s face brightened and broke into a wide, goofy grin, the kind of grin Melissa loved to see. “Are you serious? Mom, that’s awesome! Look at you, going back to school. Being a student again. You’re so cool.”

Melissa shrugged, always humble but always proud. “Yeah, well. Always room for improvement, right?” She grabbed the laundry basket off the floor and headed back into the kitchen.

“Mom?” Scott asked quietly, and Melissa turned around. “Before you go, could you, uh…like, your neck? On the couch?”

Melissa raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

Scott nodded, face still red. “It’ll help, I promise.”

Grimacing, Melissa turned back and leaned over the back of the sofa, pulling her hair off her neck to rub up against the couch. “You’re lucky I love you so damn much,” she muttered.

But she really didn’t mind.

*

There was also the protective thing, the thing that made both Scott and Isaac cower over Melissa at the smallest sound outside like they were mama bears protecting their young.

Melissa loved them both to bits, but it was fucking annoying.

“You both know that I can throw a punch, right? And that I have pepper spray? And a gun?” It was early Sunday morning and Melissa woke up to two teenage boys asleep on her bedroom floor again, curled up next to each other like puppies. 

Scott looked alarmed. “Wait, we have a gun? Where?”

Melissa rolled her eyes and yawned. “No, _I_ have a gun, and it’s none of your business. You have claws.”

Isaac sat cross-legged on the carpet like he had no plans to go elsewhere. “We heard a noise last night. We were worried.”

“What kind of noise?” Melissa checked her watch on the bedside table—it was only seven in the morning.

“Like a scratching noise,” Scott said, and looked to Isaac, who nodded in agreement. “Against the house.”

Melissa nodded slowly. “So, like, a tree? Maybe the big maple right outside my bedroom window with the long branches I asked you both to cut down earlier this month?”

Scott and Isaac both had the decency to look down guiltily like schoolboys who got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, but Melissa just smiled and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Well, thank you for protecting me from the big scary tree. I’ll make some pancakes and then you two can take care of the problem this afternoon, alright?”

Both boys nodded and got up, tall and gangly in their pajamas pants and worn tee shirts. “I’ll make bacon,” Isaac said on the way down the stairs.

“No, make sausage, we had bacon yesterday,” Scott argued, and Melissa heard a scuffle in the hallway and the thump of a body hitting the wall.

“It’s too early for roughhousing!” She yelled, pulling on her robe.

She looked in her mirror, at her bedhead and sleep-lined face, and smiled. “Be proud, Melissa,” she said sarcastically. “You have two brave warriors on your hands.”

*

Melissa still cried sometimes, but not very often anymore. If there was one thing she wasn’t proud of, it was the hate she still harbored in her heart. The hatred for Scott’s father who acted like his job was more important than the family he ripped apart, the hatred for that smarmy Peter Hale who thought the easiest way to hurt Scott was to hurt the women in his life, the hatred for Deucalion and Ms. Blake, who used Melissa and Chris and John (parents, daddies, people with kids who needed them) to further their greed. Hatred was easy, it was fluid. Sometimes, it felt good.

But then she looked at Scott and saw such an appalling lack of hatred in his eyes that it made her ache. He was hurting, yes—Dr. Deaton told her that he’d always hurt in a certain way but he could still love and be happy. But he didn’t hate.

“How do you do it?” She asked him one day when he caught her crying in her bedroom after an especially taxing day at the hospital. “I know you’re young, but Jesus, Scott, it’s like nothing ever gets to you.”

Scott hugged her, his arms warm and spidery and clutching like he was afraid to let her go. “I tell myself that I still have you. I still have Allison, and Stiles, and Isaac, and Deaton, and all of my friends, because that’s what makes me happy. That’s what makes the anger go away.”

Melissa hugged him back, tightly, holding her son as close to her heart as she could. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispered.

_I’m so proud._


End file.
